A dream of extraordinary magnitude

I saw Pirates of the Carribean 3 today and liked it. That “musical” in the beginning? Fun for the entire family! What a way to start the feel-good motion picture of the year! Seriously, it was full of crazy, crabs, the shocking return of a key character, and Pym Particles.

Speaking of Pym Particles, I finally made it to the comic shop and Marvel Adventures – Avengers #13 was a book that I picked up. This book just earned a rare spot on my pull list due to the last three issues being made of complete and decisive win. This issue features the Avengers facing a threat that infects one of their own (guess who?) and they have to go to another someone (again with the guess who) for help. Also in the buy pile was Green Lantern 20 (ha, check out the big brain on Hal!) and Countdown 48 and 49 (it’s getting better and more interesting).

After all the nonsense that happened this week (trust me, you don’t want to hear me whine about it), my ability to draw fell back to what it was during the art lull. Then again, it may have been the lack of sleep doing it. I drew this pic of Metamorpho where the upper body was okay enough, but was a failure from the belt to the badly-drawn feet. Now, what’s weird is that I didn’t see how messed-up they were until after they were drawn, scanned and flat-colored. Actually, I redrew the head to look more Fradon-ish (since I love her art in the Metamorpho Showcase TPB that I’m reading now) and redrew the right leg. Then I redrew both legs. Four times. Each time, no dice. Efforts to redraw the pose completely also failed. I have NOTHING for the Illmosis update tomorrow. Yet.

Categories: Comics, Movies by PrimeOp

I’ll have to get an up-to-date computer by mid-2008. Because of my artwork? Well, yeah. But that’s not why I have a deadline. The reason is that there’s going to be one of those Massively Multiplayer Online games based on Lego. The more that I hear about it, the cooler it sounds. How cool? To the point where I actually give a crap about a MMO game, something that I’ve never cared about until this.
Kotaku post on upcoming Lego Universe game

A few comments:
1.) I may not play it unless I can be a ninja, Futuron, Blacktron or Classic Space guy. Maybe a Skeleton, but only if I can carry Harryhausen-approved weaponry.
2.) I won’t play it if other people can wreck up your Lego joint like I heard people can do in the Nintendo DS version of Animal Crossing.
3.) If Cena wins, we riot.

While I’m at it, here’s something that I meant to post a long time ago. It’s a modified version of the old Blacktron Meteor Monitor. I’ll have more pictures of this at a later date. Before anyone blows a gasket about it, I covered every brick and plate stud that I could and I added propulsion to it. Thanks to a lot of great Bricklink sellers, I have a small Blacktron army. I know I keep promising to post more Lego pics, but I’ll get around to it. Eventually. Maybe.

Categories: Lego, Video Games by PrimeOp

Memorial Day is one of those holidays that you really can’t wish someone a happy one… because there’s nothing joyous about it. So I’ll just thank those who are serving in the military now, thank those who served in the past and salute those who lost their lives fighting for this country.

Categories: Uncategorized by PrimeOp

Once again, fortune smiles upon the man with the El Cheapo state of mind. Formerly way over $60, they dropped the price on the Buck Rogers DVD set down to $25 on Amazon.com and $20 at Wal-Mart. For two thin ten spots I now possess every example of Buck knocking people out with the Double Axe Handle smash, Wilma Deering being a beautiful butt kicker/pilot and Hawk just be one of the coolest damn supporting characters ever. I’ll probably catch a lot of crap for saying this, but Twiki the Robot didn’t annoy me as much as everyone tells me he was supposed to. Then again, I’m the guy who likes the Silver Shamrock ads in Halloween III: The One Without Michael Myers. Seeing as how my Taito Legends vol. 2 isn’t here yet, this is a nice consolation prize. As a bonus prize, here’s a pic of Erin Gray and I at a Pittsburgh Comic Con where I try not to smile like a giddy, old nerd.

Categories: Uncategorized by PrimeOp

Adam Hughes on Mary Jane vs. Laundry (Newsarama)

Yeah, I know it’s late, but I’ve been busy.

Categories: Comics by PrimeOp

Those looking for Taito Legends 2 (now a Gamestop/EBGames exclusive) may want to order from the website. They’ve shipped and some stores got ’em while others don’t. Of course, mine didn’t. Anyway, here’s the links:

Gamestop
Taito Legends 2 for Playstation 2
Taito Legends Power Up for PSP

EBgames
Taito Legends 2 for Playstation 2
Taito Legends Power Up for PSP

Peep the full line up on the official site. Personally, I really, really want it for Dungeon Magic, Growl and to see how the Legend of Kage remix turned out. Plus, I’m still in shock that Violence Fight made it on to a compilation. I’m hoping that this one sells well enough so that we can get a volume 3 with Cadash for the PS2.

Categories: Video Games by PrimeOp

First of all, BAMM! I finally drew a satisfactory pic of my character Passion Tanaka. After mentioning her on page 1 of Nutroll:the Illness, I was ashamed that her character profile didn’t have art that fully captured her character. People seem to be digging this so far, so I hope she picks up a few more fans. I even did a rare mid-week update because I couldn’t wait to put that picture on the site. The last few weeks have been a bit miserable at times (cue Hank Pym playing the world’s tiniest violin) but this and a few other yet-to-be-announced things have kicked things up a notch. Is she shiny or what?

The Source, a the Hip-Hop magazine that I bought until it’s late-90’s descent into madness, may be dying. Sad, but not surprising.

Still laughing at people with their Multiverse headaches.

Finally, Time-Warner Cable here fixed that weird channel error where the digital cable preview channel would freeze on this “No Hard Jarring” frame in the wee hours of the morning. She will be missed… until that magic week when they preview Boomerang or BET Jazz.

Categories: Art, My characters by PrimeOp
Tags: no hard jarring

In this first official random brain dump post, all entries have been sorted according to their riboflavin conent, polygon count and Pokédex Number.

1.) Sucker-Free Sunday: Doing a promo with a guy that’s yelling “We ARE Hip-Hop!” at the top of his lungs in a thuggish voice while video clips of blinging grills, rumpshakers and cars with spinning rims is bass-ackwards and embarassing. Wait, I forgot that Mainstream Hip-Hop doesn’t have shame. Your main audience, people who are looking to be programmed with coolness updates, don’t give a damn about the term Hip-Hop. Can we get the Afrikaa Bam’s Zulu Nation to trademark Hip-Hop like the monks did with the term Shaolin so it won’t get dragged through the mud any further?

2.) DC Comics’ Multiverse: If there’s one thing that I find confusing about the Multiverse, it’s that I was able to understand it when I was child but now there are grown folks that are already confused about the new one that hasn’t even been fully seen yet. If you’ve ever seen any piece of fiction with an alternate reality, you already know the rules. I’ve noticed more Multiverse defenders coming out on the comic boards, so I hope that’s a good sign.

3.) DVDs: You don’t really appreciate the term “menus” being considered a special feature until you get an DVD that doesn’t have them. I found a used D.C. Cab DVD that turned out to have no menus. At all. You put it in and the movie just starts and loops back to the beginning when it’s done. Universal should be ashamed of not even having a menu for a 2004 DVD. Even those $1 Digiview DVDs manage to throw together some animated menus. Hell, even bootleggers take the time to make menus.

Categories: Random Thoughts by PrimeOp

First of all, it was Free Comic Book day today. Of course, I missed the comic that I wanted the most: A Bob Burden Gumby comic. GUMBY, DAMMIT!. Yeah, I know that was expected, but there was no other way to describe my pain. To sooth the soul-ache was the Slott/Jiminez Spider-Man comic. Aw, man. It was Spider-Man being the funster while juggling the responsibility of fighting crime and letting his loved ones know that he cares. Oh, and there’s a surprise new superhero and one of my favorite new Marvel villains in YEARS. As much as I’m not really feeling the Marvel Universe right now, I’d start checking out Spidey if Dan Slott were the new writer. I also picked up Kirkman’s Werewolf book & the Tokyo Pop book, but haven’t had time to read them yet. For paying books, I bought the Avengers:Kree-Skrull War TPB and the Atom. What I loved about that issue of the Atom was how I didn’t really see that ending coming even though a re-reading of the situation hinted towards it. The new Atom is one of the few recent “legacy characters” that I enjoy and it’s all Gail Simone’s fault. The woman has liquid win running through her veins and I’m glad that she’s staying on the title to give the new hero a fighting chance.

The star of the week for me? What else? The final issue of 52. While I don’t like some of the series’ aftermath (a perfectly fine character as is + a perfectly fine character as is = unneccessary legacy = whatever, man), I loved the series all the way through. Even better: the ending made some other readers heads hurt. Do you know how fun it was to read comic book message board threads with people crying about how fiction made their head hurt? If you read fiction and the things that you assume about the fictional developments within make your head hurt, guess what? You earned that headache and I hope it made you cry. Me? I can’t wait to see what shades of crazy roll out of this. Oh, and Booster Gold is now the man.

The two unexpected items of the day were both used VHS tapes and a DVD. The first was one that Raijin Z alerted me to: a used copy of the Ninja Gaiden anime. Sure, it’s on YouTube.com somewhere. So? I have it on tape now. The second was the real shocker: a promo video for Busta Rhyme’s ‘Gimme Some More‘ video by Hype Williams. I haven’t watched it yet, but the package says that it came free with the Extinction Level Event album. MTV had something to do with it because their logo is on the box. Man, I miss the old, crazy Busta videos like that. The final item was Pee-Wee Herman’s Christmas special. Any show with Grace Jones singing a Christmas song while Frankie and Annette are forced to make Christmas decorations is pure magic.

Categories: Haul by PrimeOp

Thanks to mysterious forces beyond my control, the following image will be stuck in my head for years.

If you live in Warren, Ohio and have Time Warner Cable, you may already know what this is. It all began on around the time that TWC replaced our second TV guide channel (comically 6 spots away from the first one) with a second slot of it’s digital preview channel. At some point in the evening that I’m usually at work or not paying attention during the weekend, the channel freezes on that image up there. For hours. This poor woman is stuck in an unflattering mid-sentence mouth pose along with a phrase that has some of the weirdest capital letter emphasis I’ve seen in a long time. For added laughs, it’s an interlaced image that flickers back and forth between two nearly identical frames in a way that’s hard JARRING like a MF’er. The jerkiness is subtle on some nights while other evenings look like a scene from Herbie Hancock’s Rock It. I tried to take a vidcap of the flicker, but the hard JARRING wasn’t trying to hear that noise. It’s cute and all, but I’m sure I’ll be wanting to dropkick somebody in the neck when they preview the Boomerang channel and I’m stuck with watching Kissyface Infomercial Lady instead of Frankenstein Jr., the Superfriends or the Herculoids.

Categories: Television by PrimeOp
Tags: no hard jarring